A variety of portable physical fitness-type apparatus are known to enable user performance of various exercises in the home or office. Certain types of these exercising apparatus are provided as fixed structures useful for performing a variety of exercises; however, they are incapable of folding up so as to occupy less space after exercise completion. Such devices are difficult to use in the home or office, where living or working space is also required for other purposes.
While collapsible gym apparatus are known for folding to storage positions against a wall or the like, to my knowledge, such apparatus are generally beset with several problems. For example, due to their collapsible nature, certain of these devices lack the structural rigidity necessary for performing certain exercises imparting full body weight to the structure, such as chin-ups, dips, and the like.
Other collapsible gym devices are capable of supporting full body weight and tend to expand the number of exercises capable of performance on them. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,140 to Eichorn, there is disclosed a collapsible gym apparatus having four vertical, corner mounting posts defining a rectangular shaped gymnasium. The gymnasium includes an overhead horizontal ladder, inclined bench and weight/cable arrangement for weight pulling exercises. The mounting posts are hingedly secured to floor bracing, and are buttressed with a number of hinged, diagonal bracing members to support body weight and maintain the structure in stable, set-up position.
While numerous exercises can be performed on such devices, a large surface area is required for exercising use. In smaller rooms, these devices can preclude other activities from simultaneously occuring. In addition, such devices can require substantial amounts of time to set up, or fold up after use, and can be inconvenient to use during office hours.
Other collapsible devices are capable of supporting full body weight but require attachment to a wall or other load supporting structure, and also require storage space for the weight bench and other accessories.